Cedar Swamp with Inhabitants | graphite
We have walked our dog along the same stretch of road through a cedar swamp in northern Michigan for several years now. The stretch of road is beautiful and remote-feeling. I am ninety-five percent sure there are no predatory animals in the vicinity and yet I startle at every branch-crack or nut-fall.
Serpentine Willows | graphite
We walk along a beautiful creek along which grows a chaos of black willows and long flowing grass (Melissa refers to it as "ramen grass"). At times the limbs seem to disappear into the stream or under the grass.
Serpentine Willows | graphite and colored pencil
I love to visit the dunes when we travel to northern Michigan, the hike to the beach when you come out of the woods and enter the unique landscape of the dunes, the foliage is both rich and sparse, the rise and fall of the hills of sand, the glimpses of the endless lake before you see it come into full view. Nature feels big here.
Clearly these colors are not exactly "natural." And yet so many different colors do actually appear in nature under certain conditions. I choose colors that I find exhilarating. And when I work in this way, I cannot stop at making just one drawing because new color combinations are constantly suggesting themselves in the margins of the drawing paper. To me these drawings suggest the vast richness of Nature.
